1. Field of Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to locating a mobile communication device within a communication network.
2. Related Art
A cellular network is a wireless network distributed over a geographic area that is divided into cells. Each cell is served by at least one fixed-location transceiver, known as a base station. The base station is responsible for handling traffic and signaling between communication devices and a network switching subsystem. When joined together, the cells provide communications over a wide geographic area. This enables mobile communication devices, such as mobile cellular telephones to provide an example, to communicate with each other, with base stations, and/or with other communication devices within the cellular network.
The mobile communication device represents a device that can initiate and receive communications over a radio link while moving around a wide geographic area. Knowing a physical location, or simply a location, of the mobile communication device within the cellular network can be beneficial to a user of the mobile communication device, as well as an operator of the cellular network. This allows the mobile communication device and/or the cellular network to provide location-based services (LBS) to the user. LBS represent various services that are provided to the users that depend upon the physical location of the mobile communication device. These services can include, for example, recommending social events in a city, requesting the nearest business or service such as an automated teller machine (ATM) or restaurant, turn by turn navigation to an address, locating people on a map, location-based mobile advertising, or contextualizing learning and research as well as many other services.
The present disclosure will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings, like reference numbers generally indicate identical, functionally similar, and/or structurally similar elements.